Tag Archives: Decapitation

While other countries excel in science and the arts, the heartland of Islam knows what it’s good at and sticks to it.

Ever since Mohammed’s day, they have had one thing that they are really good at. Chopping people’s heads off. And this year, the Saudis are on track to break their own beheading record.

The latest beheading brings to 74 the number of executions carried out in Saudi Arabia this year, according to an AFP count. In 2012, the country carried out 76 executions, according to a tally based on official figures.

The question now is can the Saudis beat their 2012 beheading record before the year ends?

In 2013, the Saudis have been beheading people at a rate of two a week. But they don’t have much time left and they’ve been held back by swordsmen problems.

An official in the ultra-conservative kingdom said that sword-bearing executioners “are not readily available everywhere and on some occasions, executions were marred by confusion as the executioner was late in showing up at the designated public place”.

The unnamed bureaucrat told the daily Al Youm that in the age of easy digital communication, executioners’ lateness was “causing confusion and sparking speculation and rumours through modern technology”

After receiving complaints of a beheading video that is circulating on Facebook, leading social network says it will not allow such content

AFP

A screenshot from a video showing a woman is being decapitated with a knife by a masked man. The video is believed to have originated in Mexico. (Image: Facebook)

Facebook on Wednesday said it will delete beheading videos being shared at the leading social network as it re-evaluates its policy regarding whether such content is acceptable.

The move came as a reversal for Facebook, which had been responding to complaints by refusing to intervene since the clips didn’t violate the social network’s policy because they were being shared to condemn decapitations.

Facebook had equated sharing of the video at the social network to news organizations that broadcast graphic scenes to bring attention to and rally sentiment against violent acts.

“We will remove instances of these videos that are reported to us while we evaluate our policy and approach to this type of content,” Facebook said in an email response to an AFP inquiry.

The turn-about reportedly came after the California-based social network’s safety advisory board criticized the decision to leave the gruesome clips up at the website.

The controversy centered on two videos that appeared to have been made in Mexico, and weapons used to behead victims included a chain saw and a knife, according to online reports.

Oil-rich kingdom mulls abolition of beheading in favour of firing squads for capital punishments due to reported shortages of government swordsmen, Saudi daily reports.by Ahram Online

Swordman prepares to behead convict in SAudi (Photo: Al-Ahram)

A joint Saudi committee composed of representatives of the ministries of interior, justice and health is mulling the replacement of beheading with firing squads for capital sentences due to shortages in government swordsmen, Saudi daily Al-Youm reported on Sunday.

The committee argued that such a step, if adopted, would not violate Islamic law, allowing heads – or emirs – of the country’s 13 local administrative regions to begin using the new method when needed.

“This solution seems practical, especially in light of shortages in official swordsmen or their belated arrival to execution yards in some incidents; the aim is to avoid interruption of the regularly-taken security arrangements,” the committee said in a statement.

The ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom beheaded 76 people in 2012, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Human Rights Watch (HRW) put the number at 69.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia’s strict version of Sharia, or Islamic Law. So far this year, three people have been executed.

The beheading issue has always been a source of tension between Saudi Arabia and the international community.

Last month, Saudi Arabia slammed international reactions to its beheading of a Sri Lankan man convicted of killing her employer’s baby.

Riyadh “deplores the statements made… about the execution of a Sri Lankan maid who had plotted and killed an infant by suffocating him to death one week after she arrived in the kingdom,” a government spokesman said.

The case sparked widespread international condemnation, including from rights groups that said she had only been 17 years old when she was charged with murdering the baby in 2005.

The case soured the kingdom’s diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka, which on Thursday recalled its ambassador to Saudi Arabia in protest.

The UN’s main human rights body on Friday expressed “deep dismay” at the beheading, while the European Union said it had asked Saudi authorities to commute the death penalty. Riyadh, however, rejected the statements as “external interference” in its domestic affairs.

Saudi Arabia “respects… all rules and laws and protects the rights of its people and residents, and completely rejects any intervention in its affairs and judicial verdicts, whatever the excuse,” the spokesman said.